


Hey Jude

by DeanRH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 15:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16600268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH
Summary: Dean finds out a secret his Dad was keeping from him.





	Hey Jude

The night is warm.

Stars are out.

Sitting on the hood of the Impala isn't something he makes a habit of, given the ease of the paint scratching, or the dents, but sometimes it's his favorite place on Earth.

He's sitting alone, the stars spread out above him, in a clearing with a canopy of pine forest just behind where he parked Baby.

An old, weatherbeaten, leatherbound journal in one hand.

A cold beer in the other.

He thinks he might be needing something stronger, soon.

_Dad's journal! Saving people, hunting things...the family business!_

He hears his own words echoing back to him.

The wind breathes softly over the open pages.

He looks down.

The writing still hasn't changed.

He could call Cas. Hell, he could call Sam.

He  _should_ call Sam.

And he will.

Just...

He's tried to convince himself that John didn't write it.

Those looping, familiar letters tell him otherwise.

He tries to tell himself - the same lies he's always told himself.

They've always told him.

_Protect Sammy. Everybody leaves you, Dean._

_**And this is what you're gonna become!** _

Words, thoughts, vicious things spit at him from nightmares made flesh.

But he always tried to rise above it, fight it down, push it back.

_What's more important than family?_

He's a soldier with one overwhelming command:

_Protect Sammy._

He reads the words again.

_"We've raised Dean as our own. Mary was able to get pregnant with Sam, and so Dean's never known that he's not our son. We haven't loved him any less for it. Dean is adopted. We never knew the parents."_

He breathed out.

Sam - no wonder they never looked much alike.

No wonder Dad treated him like - like Dean didn't matter as much.

_Protect Sammy._

He felt cold and hot all at once, when he'd tripped over this information. He thought of how he'd been treated all his life, all those expectations. He thought of everything he'd denied himself in the name of his great mission. He thought of Castiel and his burgeoning feelings - those feelings he pushed down. No time, and what kind of idiot must he be to even  _consider -_

Dean was alone in the world.

Family - that all-important word - meant nothing.

***

He startled when his cellphone rang. Dropping the journal onto the hood of the car, he pulled it out of his jacket pocket.

_Sam,_ read the caller ID.

Dean sighed and answered.

"Yeah, Sammy?" he asked, the words lancing through him.

"Dude, where are you?" Sam asked. "You were supposed to be back hours ago."

"I, uh," Dean began.

"Did you find Dad's other journal?" asked Sam. 

"Yeah, I did," said Dean. "In a lockbox at the warehouse you sent me to."

"That's great, Dean!" Sam enthused. "It's gotta have some new information, right? Something we can use?"

Dean stared up at the stars, so the tears wouldn't fall.

"Yeah, Sam," he said. "Yeah, it does."

***

The door to the bunker closed behind him with a loud clank that reverberated through the room. Sam walked into the map room as Dean was walking down the stairs.

"Hey," said Sam, as Dean approached. "You sounded kinda weird on the phone. Are you okay?"

Dean didn't reply, just threw the journal down on the map table.

"Dean, I know you don't like talking," Sam started. Dean just shook his head and indicated the journal with an impatient wave of his hand.

Sam grabbed the journal and read the page. His facial expression traveled the gamut from concentration, to shock, to looking up at Dean with a kind of horror blended with fear.

"Oh God, Dean," Sam said. "I just -"

Mary chose this moment to walk into the room. Dean turned away from her.

"Hi boys," she said. "What's going on? Did you find the journal you were looking for?"

She gave a sad smile; thinking about John was still difficult.

"Mom, is this true?" Sam demanded, shoving the journal in her face.

Mary took it from him, giving Dean a puzzled look. His back was still to her.

She read the page. 

Her expression changed completely.

"Oh..."

" _Is it true,_ " Sam repeated.

Mary glanced from Dean to Sam, pursing her lips.

She nodded.

"How could you not tell him?" Sam said. "How could you not tell  _us?_ "

Dean finally turned around.

"Is that what I was to you?" he snarled. "Some charity case, a good little soldier? Someone to protect your  _real_ kid, someone expendable?"

"Oh, honey," said Mary. "No. We loved you.  _Both_ of you."

"Sure coulda fooled me," said Dean. "All that shit Dad used to say to me? About protecting Sammy? About taking care of the Impala? About  _family, Dean_? Well, fuck you. All y'all."

He stomped off, marched down the hallway, and slammed his door like he was still a child.

He sat on his bed. He looked at his wall, sparse except for the gun.

He thought of Lisa, of Ben. 

Of Ellen and Jo.

Of everything he'd lost.

And now he wasn't a Winchester.

Never had been.

Just a tool to be used by the family.

A tool to protect a bloodline he'd never belonged to at all.

Dean wasn't one for crying.

But he sobbed now, like a child.

***

Later, there was a knock on his door.

"What."

There was a pause.

"It's Sam."

"Go away, Sam."

"Can I just - "

" _Go away, Sam!_ "

Dean's eyes were bloodshot from crying. No way in  _hell_ was he letting his little brother - or his, his - what was Sam to him now? Anyway, nobody was seeing him cry. 

_Whup-whup._

_Oh, damn it all to hell._

Castiel stood there, staring at him with serene blue eyes.

"You go away too," said Dean, hiding his face in his pillow.

"No," said Castiel.

"What do you want?" mumbled Dean.

Castiel sat down on the edge of his bed. Dean didn't want to look at him.

Dean rolled over and looked at him anyway.

Castiel gave him a sort of full-body sadness-pity look that Dean had never seen before.

"Don't pity me," Dean growled, trying to sound badass and sounding like a petulant child.

"You are Dean Winchester," Castiel said, apropos of nothing.

Dean wrinkled his eyebrows at him. Then he rolled his eyes.

"Not anymore, I'm not," said Dean.

A horrible thought struck him.

"You knew, didn't you?" he demanded.

Castiel looked away.

"Why didn't you  _tell_ me?!" Dean asked.

"It wasn't my place," said Castiel. "Besides, it didn't matter."

"It didn't  _matter_?" Dean said, sitting up in bed. "The hell it didn't! I don't know who I am anymore, Cas!"

"You are Dean Winchester," he said again, relentless and calm, like the sea.

"I'm not part of the  _Winchester bloodline_  as you guys put it," Dean said.

"And yet you are  _still the vessel_ of the archangel Michael," said Castiel.

"Don't bring him into this," Dean groaned.

"All I am saying is that the two of you are brothers, and are Winchesters, in every way that matters," said Castiel. "As a wise man once said: family don't end in blood."

Despite himself, Dean quirked a smile. 

"Yeah, well, Bobby was," he began.

"Your adoptive father," Castiel said. "And no less family. No less  _Winchester_ , in his own way, despite having another last name. Would you argue with that?"

Dean bunched the fabric of his comforter reflexively, with his fists.

"No," he said. 

There was another knock at the door.

"Dean," said Mary. "It's your mom. Can I come in, please?"

Castiel threw Dean a supportive look, and nodded encouragingly.

Dean sighed. Never could say no to those blue eyes.

"Yeah okay," Dean said. 

Mary opened the door.

"Oh, hello Castiel," she said. "I hadn't realized you were here."

Castiel nodded to her, but made no move to leave. He gave Dean a look that said  _in case you need me._

Sam barged right in afterwards, a stumbling mess of  _I'm sorry Dean_ and  _do you want to talk about it Dean_ and Dean held up his hand.

"Later, Sammy," he said. He crossed his arms and looked at Mary, awaiting an explanation.

Mary sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Cas. Sam stood awkwardly in the doorway.

In the low light of Dean's room, she told the story.

"Your father and I," she began. "We - we wanted children. We didn't think we could get pregnant. We'd tried and tried. So, finally, we decided to adopt."

She reached out and patted Dean's arm. He held her gaze, and with a flick of his head, indicated she continue.

"In those days, people didn't  _talk_ about it," she said. "There were laws in place so that adopted children never found out they were adopted. We never told you boys because - it didn't matter to us. You were both our sons. Equally."

"It  _matters to me,_ " Dean finally said, under his breath.

"I know, baby," said Mary. "And I'm sorry. I don't know why John felt compelled to write that in his journal but I suppose he knew I was dead and it might be the only way you'd find out."

"Were you ever going to tell us?" Sam asked, from where his gigantic loose-limbed frame was haunting the doorway.

"I honestly don't know," said Mary. "My brave boys. I didn't want to drive a rift between you or make you think we loved either one of you any less."

"Mom," said Dean. "I think it's time you knew how Dad treated us after you were gone."

It was Mary's turn to look puzzled. 

Sam looked at the floor.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

***

A few hours later, the story was out. John's single-minded pursuit of the Yellow-Eyed Demon, the boys growing up in motel after motel, with not enough money to get by, and Dean's young forays into truck stop prostitution to keep Sammy fed. Years and years of stories unspooling in front of Mary, as though she were watching a film. 

When Sam and Dean had finished, Mary was openly weeping. Castiel alone had remained silent.

"Oh, my poor boys," said Mary. "That was not my John, that was not the life I wanted for you boys..."

After a while, she composed herself. 

"If he ever comes back from the dead again," she said, "I'm gonna kick his ass."

She looked at Dean.

"You were  _never, never_ less than my son," she told him. "You are Sam's brother, and John's son, too.  _You are a Winchester_."

She glanced at Castiel.

"And there are so many people who love you, Dean," she said, sniffling. "I know I haven't been a great Mom to you boys. I know things have been hard. But you'll  _always be my little boy._ Mine. No matter what."

"And you'll always be my brother," Sam said, "You gotta know that, Dean. This changes nothing at all."

"Family don't end in blood," Dean said, voice rough with emotion. 

He held his hand out to his mother.

Mary pushed it away, and gathered him up in her arms. She rocked him, as she had not done since he was a little boy, and as much as he pinched his eyes together he could not stop the tears from falling.

"When you were little," she said. "I read a poem. I put it in a scrapbook. I don't know where it is now. But I kept it all the same, and I remember it."

She held him tight; tears in her eyes, and Sam's too, as she rocked Dean back and forth, while Castiel kept watch over this family as was his sacred duty from time immemorial, the Winchesters's guardian angel.

Mary began to recite the poem.

_Not flesh of my flesh_

_Nor bone of my bone_

_But still, miraculously, my own_

_Never forget, for a single minute_

_You didn't grow under my heart_

_But in it._

And there, in a room deep in an underground bunker, a little family that had been forged in flame grew all the stronger, beneath the watchful eye of their guardian angel.

But really, he was family, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a headcanon of mine about Dean for a long time. I'm also adopted and at one time, I thought this was where the story in the show was going, since it focused so much on concepts of 'found family'.


End file.
